Software Update - WD SmartWare Version 1.6.4 for Windows (10/10/12)

Western Digital makes great hard drives, but that’s the end of the story.

Reformat your Western Digital drive to NTFS.

Don’t install WD Smartware at all, or if you did, delete all traces of it.

Set up your regular back-ups using the built-in back-up program within your copy of Windows.

I’ve used it successfully for years.

Mine was already NTFS. It did not need to be formatted NTFS.

This issue was reported by me long ago.  Windows 64 bit will not run in sleep mode unless you manually do it.  You can’t schedule sleep mode any more.  You are correct it is the WD Smartware sofware preventing windows from going into sleep mode. 

Дайте скачать новую версию программы WD SmartWare

From Google Translate:

Дайте скачать новую версию программы WD SmartWare

Give to download a new version of WD SmartWare

I’m having the same problems with everyone else with version 1.6.4 on Windows7 Pro x64.  Can someone send me a link to download version 1.6.2.5?  Thanks!

1.6.4 is the only version I have used. I have an HP all-in-one computer that was purchased with windows 8. The WD drive keeps disappearing. When you open file explorer sometimes it is there. But it usually disappears after a few days. Sometimes you can get it back just by removing the usb 3 and reinserting it. Sometimes you have to push the button on the back of the WD drive itself. Sometimes you know it is not there because the WD software seems to be running continuously looking for it. However at the end of the day the Backup and Retreive tabs are constantly greyed out, meaning you could never access the backed information even if it was needed. This defeats the purpose of backing up.

So in my case, I have a problem with the hardware and the software. I just wish I had looked at this community before I purchased.

Hi Bobber123,

I’m running a Lenovo with Windows 8.  A couple of thoughts on your queries. 

I have a WD My Passport Drive which does not have a ‘button on the back’ which I guess is a power switch. I have not found my drive disappears spontaneously but have found that if I ‘Safely remove’ my drive using WD Quick View I do need to physically disconnect and reconnect the WD drive for it to become active again.  It will also become active again if I switch the power off to the WD drive (it is attached to a powered USB Hub).

Regarding the greyed out Back up and Retrieve tabs in the SmartWare screen, have you tried clicking on the icon of your WD drive on Home tab?  This should make them active.  For some reason WD do not mention this important matter on the Home tab.

I mentioned my experiences with 1.6.4 on an XP computer and why I reverted to 1.6.2 on page 6 of this string http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-Software/Software-Update-WD-SmartWare-Version-1-6-4-for-Windows-10-10-12/m-p/507928#M5832

I now have a new Core i5 laptop with Windows 8 and have updated My Passport Essential to firmware 1.019.  I used the drive with MS Easy Transfer to copy my files across to the new computer.  This worked extremely well with a couple of exceptions (see below).

I installed SmartWare 1.6.4 on the new computer which seems to work although it still has the problems identified on earlier 1.6.x versions.

As Slash and other users have noted, SmartWare stops Windows timing out to Sleep mode, although it does go to Sleep mode if I close the lid.  I presume SmartWare disables Sleep mode to ensure that backup is not interrupted.  I had a problem with timer controlled Sleep mode interrupting the installation/updating of another program so I’m not unhappy with this feature but it should be mentioned in the Release Notes.

I’ve found two issues that I hadn’t encountered before:

First:  my main Outlook PST file was renamed automatically to  “Outlook (1).pst” by Windows when I copied the files over.  I set SmartWare to keep 2 versions of the back up files instead of the default 5 versions but found that it kept adding more new versions of the backup and reached 12 versions (and was still increasing).  My Archive PST file only had 2 backup versions, so the type of file does not seem to have been the issue.  I renamed the file to “Outlook.pst” and it now saves correctly.  It appears the “ (1)” in the filename that caused the problem which I found also existed with 1.6.2.

Second: when I reconnected the My Passport drive to my old XP computer it started categorising all my files again.  These were virtually fully backed up before I transferred to the new computer and none of the existing backups have been replaced or replicated – it simply seems to be checking them all which will take many hours.  Perhaps this is because I updated the firmware on the WD drive.

Some problem no way to sole it

WD SmartWare to version 1.6.4  on the Home page, My Book Live is locked and when I click on the image to unlock the drive, I receive a message stating: Authentication Failed  -  Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0X80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED)). T

OS XP.

 I’m little bit worried about some future release by WD, the things going worst.

Next hd will be all unless the WD I was thinking to buy

Bought a new 2T WD My Book Live, downloaded WD Smartware…and I can’t even use my BRAND NEW Hard Drive.  Says Authentication Failed.  Drive Locked.  Nice work WD…Nice Work.

Using Windows 7 Home…

This same issue was plaguing my XP desktop . . . so I have gone back to previous version and do not update when prompted. So far, so good.

My drive becomes locked with the software update on my XP machine.

Can WD staff provide links to preious SmartWare version?

try here  http://wd-smartware.software.informer.com/

I dl 1.5 and works

and say thanks to “distant”

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-Software/SMARTWARE-1-6-4-BACKUP-AND-RECOVER-TABS-LOCKED/td-p/532139

Can someone please send me version 1.6.2.5
[Deleted] 

Thanks so much.

Everything was working fine.  I upgraded to 1.6.4 and now my backup will not start.  It just sits there and and never runs!!

Was this release ever tested??

I just updated the WD smart ware today. Upon restarting my dell computer, my computer hard drive was no longer recognized. It is as the computer hard drive crashed and I’m not content just replacing the computer entirely because it is too obvious what the cause was. Has there been any similar issues or answers. Thank you for your help.

I’m hoping other, more knowledgeable members of this community will respond to your query with a better answer for you.

Based on my own experience ( See posts from headscratcher starting from: http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-Software/Software-Update-WD-SmartWare-Version-1-6-4-for-Windows-10-10-12/m-p/494296#M5725), I would conclude that there is probably nothing physically wrong with your hard drive. I am not sure what you would need to do to get it back working, except to go through the chkdsk utility. That may repair your Master Boot Record.

If you are experienced with Linux, you may run your computer from a live Linux CD, and try to bring up your hard drive that way. If you have another computer available, you may want to network it to your Western Digital drive, and see if any of your backups are still present on the “MyBookLive” Drive.

In my case, I thought my computer’s hard drive had died, so I went out and bought a new one. I installed Windows 7 and started from scratch. I had backed up most of my stuff on other media, so I didn’t loose too much data. Reinstalling all my programs was another story, though.

As far as a response from Western Digital, they should at least inform existing and new purchasers of this product to refrain from installing 1.6.4. Perhaps the words, “Class Action Lawsuit” might get their attention.

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In other theads regarding version 1.5.4.5, somebody responded that there was a way to fixed the problem of greyed out tabs by installing this older version. It said

Re: Smartware 1.5.4.5 update[ New ]

Options

‎03-23-2012 09:18 AM

In the newest version, 1.5.4.5, you must click in the external drive icon, from the Home tab, in order for all tabs to become available.

Can somebody put up a picture on the external drive icon (as in the smartware screen), I don’t seen to see it anywhere. My system Windows XP does not seem to allow an older version downgrade.

Thanks

Fnando